In This Life
by Jael K
Summary: In one Earth, Rip didn't time-scatter the Legends-he send the Waverider spinning through the multiverse, damaged, its crew trying to find a way home. And when that Earth's Sara and Leonard approach another Earth's Waverider, they'll find out just what a life and a destiny can turn on.


**Author's** **Note**: This is a one-shot (probably) and I'm not even sure where it came from. My tendency to "what-if," I suppose! Just bear in mind that the Earth this starts out in is not canon-Legends Earth (which I suppose becomes apparent very soon).

Many thanks to LarielRomeniel, who kept me from making a rather big goof!

* * *

Sara can't sleep.

That's not so unusual, really. She doesn't need much rest, hasn't since the League—both times. And all this bouncing around through different Earths and timelines has her internal clock even more screwed up than usual. (Damnit, Rip.)

Those are good reasons for why she finds herself wandering the corridors while everyone else is sleeping and the ship hurtles through the timestream and—well, whatever they should call the space between Earths. Excellent reasons, really. But they're not the real reasons, and she knows it, and—as she steps into the doorway of the galley and stops—she knows she's not alone in that.

Leonard glances up from where he's sitting at the counter, no surprise at all in his expression or his eyes. He has a still mostly full drink in front of him, and his right sleeve is rolled up to his shoulder, exposing both his upper arm and the prosthesis that had taken the place of his right hand, wrist and forearm after he'd frozen (and smashed) it off.

Sara can tell that he's been rubbing the muscles in the upper arm—the prosthesis, created by Gideon, is a good one, far beyond what's commonly available back in 2016, but it's still taking a lot of getting used to. And there's still pain, both phantom and in the nerves and muscles remaining as they grow more accustomed to the new setup. (The nerve reconnections in particular had been excruciating.)

So, he's rather more exposed than usual, but he doesn't flinch as they meet each other's eyes. Sara allows herself a small smile for that as she moves slowly into the room and toward him.

They're both thinking about what happened earlier in the day, after they'd realized where their most recent jump through Earths had taken them—and after they'd left the ship to approach the other Waverider. How could they not? Sara doesn't fully know what the other Mick had told Leonard, but she knows what the other Sara had let slip to her. Which may have been more than the other woman had intended.

But... "Hey," is all she says, moving past him to take a seat, swiveling toward him. "Couldn't sleep?"

That gets her a wry smirk and a left-shouldered shrug. "Nah," Leonard drawls in return, fingers continuing to idly rub at the muscles of his bicep. "Too much weirdness today." A pause. "Brain wouldn't shut off."

And that's the sort of moment of honesty that they do now. Sara sighs in return. "Ain't that the truth," she mutters, then edges her own seat a little closer, stretching out an arm along the table toward where his arm is propped. "Let me."

Leonard only pauses a moment before pulling his own hand away and edging a little closer himself. Sara can hear his nearly inaudible exhalation as she gently starts kneading the muscles right above his elbow, bringing her other hand up to cup his elbow where it rests. This puts them rather more in each other's space than usual, but it's not the first time. He knows she can help him here. She's done it before.

She wonders again why he hadn't made a move since before the Oculus. The attraction's there; it's never gone away. She can feel it in the way he's holding himself, the way he's breathing. And after what the other Sara had said...

Abruptly, she moves her left hand away from his elbow and toward the drink that's still sitting there, letting her right hand continue to work. A long drink—it's the good scotch; Rob Ray must have given Rip a _lot _of booze—and it's a good quarter of the way gone. Leonard lifts an eyebrow, and Sara promptly extends the glass to him. He brings his own left arm up and around to take it, and she tries not to watch the muscles in his throat work as he takes his own long drink.

He passes it back to her rather than try to reach over to the counter, and Sara takes another, quicker drink before setting it down again. Just in time, because Leonard's apparently decided it's time to talk.

"So," he drawls, transferring his gaze back. "She tell you how I died?" He pauses as Sara stares at him. "Well. Other me. That Earth's me."

She'd figured he'd known, considering... "Mick...the other Mick...didn't tell you?"

"Nope." Leonard tilts his head, watching her. "Actually, he didn't even tell me I was dead there. Wasn't hard to figure out, though."

"No." Sara's counterpart, emerging from that Waverider with that Earth's Mick as Sara had left her Waverider with Leonard, had stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the crook like she'd seen a ghost. So had that Mick.

She's quiet for a few more moments and Leonard doesn't interrupt that quiet. He gets it. He always has. Finally, though, Sara sighs, shaking her head, and meets his eyes.

"You...he...died at the Oculus," she says, aware that her hand has tightened around his arm. "In that Mick's place."

A moment of quiet. Then: "Ouch."

"Yeah." Sara looks down at the prosthesis even as Leonard does the same. "The regeneration tech on that Waverider hadn't been damaged there. After...after Chronos...Gideon was able to reconstruct your arm, and..."

"...and when I… he… got to the Oculus, he couldn't lock it in place, disconnect, and run."

"No."

After a moment, an odd noise emerges from him, a huff of mingled amusement and something else. "Silver linings, huh?" Leonard mutters, looking downward, running his fingers over the site where the prosthesis is locked to the area just under his elbow joint.

Sara knows he's been a little bitter about the loss of his arm. It would be, she thinks, hard not to be, even though the complicated relationship he has with Mick has settled somewhat. On one level, he considers it only his deserved penance for his role in what Mick endured as Chronos. On another level, he hadn't had much of a choice at the time...and so much of his identity had been tied up in his role as a master thief. Better than Lewis. Better than _anyone_.

Sara gets that. Gets it on a level that maybe the others, including Mick, never will. Leonard's said it himself: he's the crook, she's the assassin. Except now she's the captain, and she's still getting used to that, too.

She moves her hand downward, to rest over his, tracing the line between surprisingly soft skin and uncannily skin-like plastic, listening to another quick intake of breath. The prosthesis is really an astounding bit of engineering, and it uses his own nerves and muscle movements to work. In a way, Leonard can even "feel" with it, and he's been regaining dexterity in wrist and fingers as time goes on.

It's not the same. It will never be the same.

But without it, he wouldn't be here.

Sara glances up again, nearly startled into an intake of breath of her own as she realizes just how close they are, and how intently Leonard's own blue eyes are studying her own.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asks, before she can think better of it.

His lips twitch a little. "Shoot."

Spit it out, Sara. "Why didn't you ever pick up the whole...'me and you' thing again? I know you're a hell of a thief."

Leonard stills, eyes still boring into hers, and Sara immediately figures she's made a mistake. She glances away, although she doesn't pull away—Leonard's already sensitive enough to his arm and the reactions of others for her to do that.

"That other Sara," she adds quickly in explanation. "She has a lot of regrets. It's been longer for them than it's been for us, and I'm pretty sure the other you is only one of those regrets, but that doesn't mean she didn't react...kind of badly...to seeing you. She asked...well. She wondered. When she was getting me the info from their Gideon's files that we needed."

"_You and Snart. Your Snart. Are you...together?"_

"_We're friends."_

"_Friends." The other woman laughs, a noise that holds so much that Sara doesn't even try to parse it out. "Friends are...good. If that's what you want." She pauses. "Is it?"_

Leonard's voice jolts Sara out of the memory.

"I guess...there never seemed to be time," he says as she looks back up at him. "The right time." A snort. "Ironic, isn't it?"

Sara thinks about Laurel. About Savage. About Rex Tyler and the Justice Society. "Not in particular."

Leonard continues, though, quietly. "And, perhaps it...occurred to me...just how badly I'd fucked up," he says, glancing away. "After the team was captured." His eyes move back to hers. "I regret that."

The quiet stretches, and Sara allows herself a moment of relief that the rest of the team is sleeping as she considers how to play this. "You were a jerk," she says finally. "But...you've made up for it."

That gets a noise of somewhat more sincere amusement. "How? Showing up in Star City and nearly getting arrested by your dad? Turning Savage into a psycho-sicle before you shattered him? Nearly instigating a battle with the Justice Society of America?"

Sara can't help a smile in return. But he doesn't seem to be quite getting what she's trying to say, and somehow, it's become very important to her. More important than she'd ever realized before hearing her other-Earth doppelganger tell her what'd happened to him in the other world.

"I can't imagine being the captain of this batch of weirdoes without you," she tells him abruptly. "I don't want to think about you not having my back. And I don't want to lose that. But..."

Her voice trails off. Leonard tilts his head, but Sara's suddenly at a loss. There's too much here. Too much to lose. Too much to gain. She closes her eyes, dragging in a breath, remembering the older Sara and the look on her face. A few too many losses, she'd guess. Who were they? And will those be coming for her? Will...

"Sara."

Leonard sounds even closer. Sara opens her eyes, blinking as she realizes just how close he is, registering the touch as his left hand comes up under her jaw and...

Oh. OK. Yes, he's a hell of a thief.

And a _hell _of a kisser.

She closes her eyes again nearly immediately, leaning into the kiss as his fingers curl under her jaw and things start to heat up. The kiss is gentle, very gentle, at first, his lips softer than expected on hers, but as Sara responds, she can feel the subtle hesitation fading away, taken over by passion as they mutually deepen the kiss.

The fingers of Sara's free hand come up and wrap around the collar of Leonard's shirt as his teeth scrape against her bottom lip and she moans, then mock-glares at him as he chuckles. Then they're right back to it, making up for wasted time, tasting and exploring and fairly well forgetting that they're actually right out in the open there in the galley.

Without much clear thought, then, Sara shifts right off her own chair and into Leonard's lap, straddling him and wrapping both arms around his shoulders to hold him close. Leonard moves his right hand-prosthesis to her hip almost involuntarily and Sara shudders as the fingertips brush the stripe of skin between her yoga pants and shirt.

He freezes, then pulls away from the continued kiss with a huff of breath. It takes Sara a moment to realize why, but when she does, she reaches down to put a hand over his, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Don't you _dare_."

"It's not..."

"It's just fine. It wasn't a bad thing, Len. And even if it did bother me—which it doesn't—if it weren't for that, you'd be...you wouldn't be here." She shifts a little more, grinning as it draws a groan from his own lips. "Now, stop overthinking it and kiss me some more."

And he does.

* * *

**On Earth-1**

"You think they pulled their heads outta their asses yet?"

Sara glances up from her seat, pulling her gaze away from the glass of scotch in her hand and eyeing Mick for a moment where he's paused in the doorway.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she says idly, transferring her gaze back to the glass and then taking a drink.

He doesn't buy it. Of course he doesn't. Sara hears an amused snort, but doesn't look up again as Mick crosses the office, pours his own drink and moves back to plop into the chair on the other side of the desk. (The springs creak. One of these days, she thinks, he's going to break it.)

"_That _Sara was giving _that _Snart quite the side-eye as they left, and not in a bad way," he informs her, then pauses. "You tell her? How he died? Here?"

_This _Sara really doesn't want to have this conversation. Not now. Probably not ever. But she owes it to Mick to give him someone to talk to about it. God knows she hasn't been good at that in the past.

"I did. While I was copying the files their Gideon needed." She had, in part, wanted to distract that Sara from asking who else was no longer on the ship. She takes another drink. "It wasn't all that long ago. For them."

"Mmph." Mick's quiet a long moment. Then he sighs, a melancholy tone that hurts Sara's heart. But he doesn't speak again and they drink a while in silence.

Finally, though, Sara decides she needs to bring it up. "You realize why that one didn't?" She clarifies as he glances up at her. "Why _that _Snart didn't die?"

Quiet. Then, quietly, "yeah."

Someday, Sara thinks, it might help him to know that the actions he still regrets as Chronos actually led to Leonard living, at least on one Earth out there.

Today is probably not that day.

Still. Someday. And maybe it will help the Mick on that Earth mend fences, as well.

"Life," she tells Mick with a sigh, lifting her glass in a toast, "is weird."

That gets a grunt of amusement. He lifts his glass back to her.

"Ain't that the truth."


End file.
